The Breeze and I
by siu-saidh
Summary: Just a conversation between the grown son of Mary & Matthew and the daughter of Sibyl & Branson, set in 1940, AU.


**Author: **Sukie

**Rating:** Not too mature, but some adult-ish themes

**Warnings: **Mentions of miscarriage

**Genre:** Historical, drama etc

**Disclaimer: **Downton belongs to Fellowes etc

**Overview: **Robert is about 21 and Frances is 22. This is just a preview, or a draft if you want, to see if people like the idea or not. Downton: 40s Style has been in my head for a while and I wanted to see how it worked out!

_**December 28th, 1940**_

Robert Crawley did not suffer fools gladly and the one strolling beside him always pressed his patience. His cousin was not one of his favourite people and it seemed that mother would always pair them together for events, and walks, and sit them together at dinner, just to make a point. But because he was his father's son, Robert was able to grit his teeth and bare his annoyance, and plaster a genial smile over his face like a proper gentleman.

"Do you think that we'll see Aunt Edith any time soon?" she looked up at him with her sharp brown eyes, and took a cigarette from a silver case. Dutifully, he took a box of matches and struck one, holding the flame as she elegantly held the thing between her red painted lips, and then as he pulled away she blow out smoke, sighing languorously.

"Hopefully, yes. However much mother and Edith might not get along, I know they miss one another. Besides, Helen and George need some more company of their own age" as if he had been given permission, Robert took out his own cigarette and lit it, inhaling deeply. She drove him to smoke, despite the fact that he couldn't really put a finger on what about her annoyed him so much. Maybe that woman she was always with, laughing and sitting close enough to touch. Inevitably, so no one would hear them talking about whatever gossip was juicy this week, or of the war, or of a handsome soldier they had spotted visiting family in the village.

Smoke trailed slowly from his nose, into the crisp and cold Winter air. One of Robert's first memories was running along here ahead of his mother. His father had laughed deeply, and his mother had called out in a half-amused and exasperated sort of way, making a comment about being too much like his father. His father always said he was too much like his grandmother, but he wasn't sure which one. Perhaps the one Mary was most like.

Frances quipped "They have a whole house to themselves! So, it's not Downton, but I know they cope well enough" she flicked ash and gave him an impish look, the dark eyes and dark hair so reminiscent of Uncle Tom that it was like he'd turned into a woman with an English accent. Unlike himself, she was an only child, and because of this she was closer to her cousins than was normal. Poor Aunt Sibyl hadn't been able to keep a baby after Frances, miscarrying at least three times in the years following her birth. Eventually the doctors had told her trying again was a risk to her health, and Tom had put a stop to her conceiving at once. Before their grandmother had died, she had aired her hopes that Sibyl 'had not inherited her ability to only make girls'. But it hardly mattered any more, and there was already an heir, himself. No one had said it, but Robert knew it was what they'd been thinking.

"They'll be here for New Year, and Evelyn and Annabel will be back from London before you know it" he eyed her. They weren't technically in London, but a place quite close to London. However, with the news of the devastation dubbed 'The Blitz', their mother and father were having kittens, and quite rightly so. Evelyn and Annabel were sixteen, proper young ladies with a little streak of wildness in them, obviously something that all the Crawley women had given their children. They were 'safe' in a home just on the edge of it all. Close enough to hear the bombs falling and to feel the ground shaking, but not close enough to be hurt. But because Evelyn and Annabel had that streak, and the streak of a warm heart, they would no doubt try to get involved in helping people, or volunteering as nurses and the idea wasn't a favourite of their parents.

It scared him to death to think about, but he never let it show. Mother and father needed to know that he had faith and hope that they would make it back in one piece.

Frances, despite all her annoying little quirks, smiled up at him widely "It's okay, Robert. They'll come back. Their blonde doesn't come out of a bottle, and Granny taught them how to kill people with words a long time ago" she touched his shoulder a little and he smiled in thanks, resisting the urge to roll his eyes and move away from her. She was only trying to be nice, something rare amongst them all these days.

"Father won't let mother go to London to fetch them, you know that. But…I know, I know they'll be fine. Despite their ability to be perpetually tiresome and constantly enthusiastic, I know that they have an air of _Granny_ about them which any human being would find terrifying"


End file.
